CM QuickFire TK on Mac OS Yosemite

A friend of mine at work gave me my first mechanical keyboard, an older, well-loved Razer with either brown or blue switches. I loved typing on it. Unfortunately, the connector cable has been losing its connection and it would quit working.

If you are a touch typist like me, mechanical keyboards offer a different feel than regular keyboards. The feel of each key can be customized by changing switches. Google differences in switches for mechanical keyboards and you’ll find a wealth of information. Brown switches are usually one of the best choices for typing. They are clicky, but not as clicky as the blues.

I found a CoolMaster QuickFire TK on Amazon for about $55 (Warehouse deal), which is a great price for the mechanical keyboard. (It’s also backlit and pretty, which doesn’t hurt.) The keyboard is short enough to fit in my small keyboard drawer, too, which is a bonus. However, the product description does not include support for Mac OS. I took a chance and ordered the keyboard. (Any firmware updates will have to be done from a Windows box or VM, which will be interesting since I don’t have either.)

I’ve found two issues with the keyboard so far: the numlock didn’t work (only had access to arrow keys) and the keyboard didn’t work after the system went into hibernate. I have to reboot the computer to correct the issue. Unplugging and plugging back in the keyboard doesn’t seem to help.

The Geek Hack keyboard enthusiasts forum posted a solution to fix the numpad issue by using either Karabiner or ControllerMate. I opted to use the Karabiner solution and so far it seems to be working great. Numpad issue is gone. We’ll see if that corrects the other hibernate-no-worky problem.